


Lucky Just To Linger

by loquaciousEscapist



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Developing Relationship, Friends to Lovers, M/M, except it's NOT an au is it???, it's basically canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-02-21 19:03:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2479067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loquaciousEscapist/pseuds/loquaciousEscapist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've moved to Tokyo and are renting separate flats, which seems ridiculous to Haru. Logistically.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing is more alarming than realising your little makoharu one shot is going to need chapters. Do I know how long this will be? No. As of now, it's currently clocking in with over 9000 words (meme unintentional), which is 9000 words more than I ever intended to write of makoharu living in Tokyo.

_It seems ridiculous that we don’t just get a flat together_ , is what Haru spends an alarming amount of time telling himself in his head. Back in Iwatobi, he hadn’t even considered the possibility of moving in with Makoto – he’d lived alone for so long that when he began to imagine himself in Tokyo he imagined his own flat, and Makoto had seemed so excited to strike out on his own when they had finally sat down and _talked_ about everything that the idea of sharing a flat had never even occurred to him.

But even this far away from home, he spends more time with Makoto than not. They meet after Haru’s finished training for the day, his hair still damp and curling slightly as he adds his own homework to the pile Makoto has already formed on the table of whichever place they’ve chosen to have dinner. They spend every weekend together exploring the city, most weeknights and subsequently most mornings at each other’s flat. It took them three days to designate a drawer in each of their flats for the other’s left behind clothes, and it only takes them that long because Haru spent the first three nights at Makoto’s flat; Makoto does not sleep well in silent, empty rooms, and Haru can’t really say he’s surprised.

Their universities are less than twenty minutes apart by train, so even _logistically_ it’d make sense to share a flat between the two, rather than what they’d ended up doing by mistake – they’re each renting flats closer to the other’s university, because they hadn’t thought to look up the four points together on Google Maps until all the leases were signed. Haru quickly starts a routine of being sure to sleep over at Makoto’s if he’s got an early start, so he gets that little bit longer in the bath in the morning.

_This is ridiculous_ , Haru reiterates as he hears his flat door open cautiously. ( _No_ , Makoto, he didn’t leave it unlocked overnight, he wasn’t _completely_ without security awareness.

Neither of them mentions the fact that that means he unlocks it in the morning, so that Makoto can come in and pull him out of the bath – neither of them have to mention it.)

He imagines more than hears Makoto’s muttered announcement of his presence, because Haru has his ears underwater and Makoto’s muttered announcements of his presence happen far too often for logical necessity. _Seriously_ , they could be pooling their money and resources, renting a far nicer flat for two in a location far more sensible.

So, before Makoto can even think about saying good morning to him, Haru lifts his head out of the bath and says “We should rent a flat together.”

Makoto looks surprised, although that could easily be blamed on the fact that Haru is already getting out of the bath, but then he smiles brightly, as though Haru has said something truly wonderful and not something that just makes _sense_.

“Okay, Haru-chan.”

And that’s that.

***

Except for the fact that it’s not.

“Why does that even matter?” Haru says to his mother down the phone. In theory he could just catch the train and go to his parents’ house, but at least this method of communication gives him the option of hanging up. It’s not that he dislikes his parents, per se, but there’s no getting around the fact that they left him behind in Iwatobi at an age he is starting to admit he really shouldn’t have been left behind without parents.

“Haruka-kun,” his mother sighs. “We signed a year lease for your flat. You can’t just choose to leave after two weeks so you can move in with Makoto-kun.” Had it really only been two weeks?

“It makes sense,” Haru argues, feeling quite reasonable.

“There are consequences you haven’t considered,” his mother says. “Did you read the lease?” The correct answer is ‘no’, but only because Nagisa had come over on the afternoon he’d been planning to read it, and then Nagisa had refused to leave his house for four days in order to ‘spend quality time with Haru-chan’. By the time Nagisa finally left, his parents were sending almost hourly emails, asking for him to mail the signed lease to them so they could pass it on to his future landlord, so he’d scrawled his signature at the end and posted it. ‘Nagisa’ was a perfectly good reason to have not read the lease, but he doesn’t think it’ll go down well with his mother, so he wisely stays silent. “If you _do_ move out before the end of your lease, the rent has to be paid until the landlord finds a new tenant…” Across the room, Makoto is looking at the newspaper for flats for them to rent. He’d had no trouble with his parents, because his parents had apparently known this would happen and had negotiated a very lenient contract with Makoto’s landlord.

Haru watches Makoto read the newspaper as his mother continues to talk about property law. Makoto’s wearing his glasses, and he’s drinking a cup of coffee, and the whole scene feels so mature and _natural_ that there’s a swoop of longing low in his stomach. He can easily imagine the two of them sharing a flat, Makoto reading a newspaper while he eats his breakfast and Haru on the phone before he starts his day – he is struck by a desperate _want_ , but he’s not sure what he wants except for the tiny voice at the back of his head whispering ‘ _this_ ’. He tries to walk as nonchalantly as possible to his bedroom, and when he has shut the door behind him he interrupts his mother with a quiet “Please.”

“You really want this, don’t you?” His mother says – he doesn’t even have a chance to say anything before she starts laughing. “Sayuri-san said this would happen, but I told her you’d both manage at least a month.” Haru coughs; he can feel his face reddening, although he doesn’t really understand why. “Thankfully we managed to negotiate a similar contract with your landlord as Makoto-kun has with his, and he’s already got a replacement tenant lined up. Hopefully you’ve learned your lesson, Haruka-kun.” Haru’s not sure what the lesson is here – always consider moving in with your best friend before you rent your own flat? If so, yes, he has learned that lesson, but he doesn’t think that’s what his mother is talking about.

“If you all knew this would happen, why didn’t you say anything?” Haru asks.

“I think it was something you both had to decide on your own,” his mother says mysteriously. She tells him to come visit them soon, and Haru is almost honest when he says he will.

“What did she say?” Makoto says when he goes back into the front room, looking up from the newspaper.

“A lot of stuff about leases, some stuff about ‘consequences’, and then it turned out my parents did the same thing as yours and just got a flexible lease with the landlord.” He shrugs, and then goes to look at what Makoto’s doing. He’s circled a couple of flats already, question marks by a few and a star by one – Haru decides to humour him. “Seen anything good yet?”

“There’s this one,” Makoto says immediately, pointing his pen at the one he had starred for emphasis. “It’s like it’s been made for us, actually – perfect location, pretty good price, nice neighbourhood…”

And _that’s_ that.


	2. Chapter 2

Their new flat is pretty empty, and that’s putting it gently - even with all of the furniture they’d brought with them there still wasn’t enough to fill the flat, so the rooms didn’t look very lived in. Nevertheless it’s _theirs_ , and they can do whatever they want with it. Haru writes out a list of things they could do with buying, responsible things like more cutlery and lamps and a second bathroom mirror (because it very quickly became apparent that the one they have is too small for them to brush their teeth in front of together without bringing their heads uncomfortably close).

The first thing Makoto brings home for their mutual flat is a whiteboard.

Haru watches in ill disguised distress as Makoto tries to wrestle it through the front door. He’d been attempting to start an essay, but that’s going to have to wait; there is a whiteboard in his flat and it’s huge, so large that Haru would suspect Makoto of stealing it from a classroom if he thought Makoto was capable of stealing from a school. Or stealing at all.

“Haru!” Makoto says, eventually standing the whiteboard on its end and sliding it through the door. “I was talking to some people in one of my lectures, and apparently a whiteboard’s a useful thing to have for students. We can write reminders on it, shopping lists – we could even write messages to each other!”

“Makoto,” Haru says. “I don’t know how to hang up a whiteboard.” Like _that_ is the problem here. He looks around the kitchen, looks at the whiteboard, and then thinks about the rest of the flat. “Also, where are we going to put it?” Thankfully, Makoto doesn’t look disappointed, but thoughtful.

“I don’t think we’re allowed to screw things to the walls,” he says, and Haru breathes a sigh of relief – neither of them know how to screw anything to the wall, and they were more likely to injure themselves than not. He drags it into the front room, and then props it up against the wall. “We can just put it here for now until we think of somewhere.” Makoto pulls a handful of whiteboard markers out of his pocket and puts them on the floor next to the whiteboard.

“So, let me get this straight,” Nagisa says that evening, after Makoto had given him and Rei the Skype tour of their new flat – they’re coming up to visit soon anyway, but both Nagisa and Makoto had _insisted_ that a Skype tour was necessary. “You don’t have a television, but you’ve got a gigantic whiteboard? Mako-chan, what’re we going to do while we're visiting you, play word games until we have to disqualify Rei-chan for using too many science words and disqualify Haru-chan for using foreign words for ‘mackerel’? Do we really have to go through that again, Mako-chan?” Haru frowned at the laptop screen, and Nagisa smiled back beatifically.

“Don’t worry, Nagisa, we can always watch movies on one of our laptops if you get bored of exploring the city,” Makoto says.

“Oh, good, because I just got the new Paranormal Activity on DVD-”

Makoto makes a noise that, if you were being unkind, you could easily equate to something you’d hear in the depths of the ocean in a movie – a low moan from an unknowable, Lovecraftian monster. Haru pats Makoto on the shoulder comfortingly. Nagisa had once fooled Makoto into thinking ‘Paranormal Activity’ was the sequel to ‘ParaNorman’, and Makoto had had nightmares for _weeks_ after just a few minutes of watching it.

“Nagisa-kun, perhaps our _hosts_ should be the ones to decide what we watch,” Rei points out. “They may have already discovered interesting films while living in the capital.”

“Rei-chan,” Nagisa says, adopting the tone of voice he always uses to mimic Rei. “Our _hosts_ have already proved they don’t know how to fend for themselves out there – they bought a whiteboard. A _whiteboard_ , Rei-chan.”

“A whiteboard is a perfectly useful thing to have in student accommodation, and Makoto-senpai and Haruka-senpai are very responsible to have bought one,” Rei replies. Haru wants to point out that he had no part in the whiteboard accrual – he’s still not one hundred percent sure Makoto bought it. He doesn’t know where it came from. Were there whiteboard shops in Tokyo? “And stop mocking me!”

“Tell us about Iwatobi,” Makoto interrupts, because otherwise Rei and Nagisa will start one of their arguments. Haru has no problem with their arguments, exactly, but now that they’re paying for their own internet he feels like he has to be a lot more discerning with what he has to put up with, and if it’s a choice between watching a Skype argument between Nagisa and Rei and searching ‘waterfalls’ on Google Images, well. There’s no contest.

“The usual,” Nagisa says with a shrug. “Gou-chan’s already talking about ways to recruit new people to the club.”

“I don’t really see us having much difficulty, considering our placing at the last tournament,” Rei says, pushing his glasses up. Nagisa shrugs again – his face has closed off, expression blank and distant, and Haru feels Makoto inhale to ask Nagisa what the matter is, but Nagisa just grins blindingly.

“You’re right, Rei-chan! But Mako-chan and Haru-chan look pretty tired, we should leave them to it.” Haru is about to protest, because something is clearly wrong with Nagisa, but Makoto chooses that moment to yawn, which starts Haru off – Rei apologises hastily for keeping them up late, bids them goodnight, and cuts the connection before either of them can get a word in edgewise.

“Either he doesn’t want to talk about it, or he doesn’t want Rei to know,” Haru says immediately, closing Skype down and opening up the internet. It’s Makoto’s laptop, but ‘water waves’ is the first recommended search that comes up when he types ‘w’ into the search bar. He scrolls through the images, content.

“I’ll text him tomorrow,” Makoto says decisively, leaning against Haru’s shoulder for a moment. He’s a warm weight against Haru’s arm, but he doesn’t stay there long – he scrambles up, goes into the kitchen and pours himself a glass of water. However, he doesn’t get to the tap fast enough to mask the tiny cough he was evidently trying to hide. Haru frowns, and he’s still frowning when Makoto comes back in, a glass of water in each hand.

“What’s wrong, Haru-chan?” Makoto asks, handing Haru one of the glasses.

“Drop the ‘chan’,” Haru mutters, out of habit. “Are you ill?”

“Hm?” Makoto says pleasantly. “Oh, no, that was just because I was too thirsty.” He holds up the drink in his hand. “I’ll be fine now.”

***

Makoto sniffs, _very_ quietly, and Haru is instantly on high alert, an instinct trained over years of having to listen carefully for these sorts of noises. It’s late, late enough that Haru should really be following his coach’s plan and be well asleep, but if he _had_ been asleep then there would have been no way he’d have heard the sniff. Makoto only ever hides his sniffing for two reasons – when he is trying to hide the fact that he’s crying, or when he’s coming down with something. They’re both in sleeping bags in the living room, because they still haven’t gotten round to buying new beds, so it doesn’t take much for Haru to roll over and look at Makoto shrewdly.

He’s buried his face in his pillow, but that doesn’t mean anything – he could be crying, or he could have a headache. So Haru shuffles over with about as much grace as a worm on a slab of dry concrete, the material of the sleeping bag making more noise than you’d expect from something you have to sleep in.

“Haru-chan?” Makoto mumbles thickly, still not giving Haru any clues. “Did I wake you up?”

“I was awake anyway,” Haru mutters back, sitting up and looking down at Makoto; when he rolls over, Haru’s relieved to see that his eyes are dry. “You _are_ sick,” Haru says louder.

“No, I’m fine,” Makoto insists, sniffing so laboriously that Haru wouldn’t be surprised to see him breaking out into a sweat from the effort of it. He’s looking up at Haru but his eyes seem to be struggling to focus, and whenever he blinks his eyes squeeze shut ever so slightly.

“So I’m alright to just go and turn the lights on, then?” Haru says, making a show of getting up – Makoto whines, throws his arm over his eyes and shakes his head.

“Okay, I’ve got a _little_ headache,” he admits, like acknowledging it is tiresome for him. Which meant the pain was probably so bad that he could barely see, if he was admitting to the slightest bit of pain. “It’ll be gone by tomorrow morning, I’m sure.” Haru counted up the symptoms Makoto had let slip to over the past few hours – headache, a blocked nose, and potentially a sore throat. Probably not something that would be gone by the morning, but Haru decided to let it rest for now and lay back down in his sleeping bag, trying not to listen out for any more sniffs. He had the day off tomorrow anyway, so he could worry about what to do then.

***

“Haru-chan,” Makoto mumbles hoarsely, muffled even further by the pillow he’d pulled over his face. “Can you close the curtains, please?”

“We don’t have curtains, Makoto,” Haru says distractedly. He’s been awake for two hours already, getting ready for Sick Makoto. Makoto was not the type of person to cause a fuss, and this translated into a very _difficult_ person to handle when he was sick. If he could think of anything that needed doing, he would do it, whether that was popping to the store for medicine for _himself_ to cooking his own soup. So Haru has been up for two hours, preparing everything he can possibly think of so that Makoto can stay in bed and rest – or, rather, stay in his sleeping bag. He’s also rung everyone for advice, which went about as well as expected.

“The English apparently have a term for this very condition,” Rei had said; Haru could hear his computer whirring in the background. “‘ _Freshers Flu_ ’,” he’d said, pronouncing it painstakingly carefully. “It’s very common amongst young adults heading to university for their first year.”

“So how do I fix it?” Haru had said.

“Apparently it passes with time,” Rei had replied apologetically.

Rin had been even less helpful, mumbling about how _early_ it was until Haru reminded him that it was even _earlier_ in Tokyo. Kou had told him she was currently ‘busy’ but that she’d message him late, and Nagisa hadn’t even picked up his phone. The only person who had helped at all was Makoto’s mother, who slowly talked him through Makoto’s preferred chicken soup recipe.

“Where are the curtains, Haru-chan?” Makoto asks worriedly.

“We haven’t bought any yet, they’re on the shopping list,” Haru says, looking away from the tray he is assembling – chicken soup, glass of water, pain killers, a damp cloth for Makoto’s forehead and some cough sweets. “But you hung some towels up yesterday, so it’s not too dark in here.” Makoto finally removes the pillow from his face and looks around confusedly.

“Oh,” he says, face clearing. “Tokyo. Sorry, I think I was half asleep.” He laughs sheepishly, and then coughs into his elbow, chest heaving. “What time is it?”

“Eight,” Haru says, bringing the tray over and putting it on top of one of the boxes they hadn’t unpacked yet. Makoto bolts upright, runs a hand through his hair, and groans.

“I’ve got a lecture-”

“No, you don’t,” Haru insists, pressing the glass of water into Makoto’s hand and popping out two of the pills. “You’re sick, Makoto.”

“Haru-chan, I can’t miss a lecture, I won’t be able to catch up-”

Haru holds up Makoto’s phone. “I tried looking through your contact list for someone to text to ask them to help you catch up, but you’ve got so many new contacts on here...” He frowns at the phone – he’d only recognised a few of the new names, people Makoto had mentioned once or twice before when telling Haru stories about his day, but a contact list Haru could count on two hands had suddenly multiplied to almost _triple_ figures over the course of a few weeks.

“Haru, I can’t ask someone to make notes for me!” Makoto says, trying to take his phone from Haru, but the headache must be throwing his depth perception off because his hand lunges out too far to the right – Haru dodges it easily.

“It’s not like you’re asking someone to sit an exam for you, you’re just asking them to let you look at their notes when you go back.” Makoto is still stubbornly pouting, so Haru holds up his phone again. “Either you tell me who to text, or I’ll send out a mass text. And I’ll ask them to bring the notes _here_ , too.”

Makoto blanches, and then lies back in his sleeping bag, defeated. “Text Tanaka-san.” Haru thumbs through the contacts and sends off the required text before setting Makoto’s phone aside. “I’m not sick,” Makoto repeats.

“So you don’t want this chicken soup, then,” Haru says, holding it out temptingly. When Makoto takes it greedily, Haru smirks – just a little. “Rei says it’s pretty common for students to get sick around now, so I think you just need rest. Your mother doesn’t seem too worried,” he finishes, watching Makoto practically inhale the soup. It doesn’t look like he’s having trouble keeping food down, but Haru watches him carefully anyway.

“So why aren’t _you_ sick?” Makoto says, a touch accusing.

“I don’t think ‘Freshers Flu’ affects sports students,” Haru says, only somewhat joking. In actuality, he thinks this ‘Freshers Flu’ is just as awed by his coach as he is, and doesn’t want to risk upsetting her. “How’re you feeling?” He asks seriously, putting the backs of his fingers on Makoto’s forehead – he’s a little warm, but nothing alarming. “Be honest.”

“I’ve got a headache, it’s making me a little dizzy, and a sore throat.” Makoto sniffs, and Haru raises an eyebrow. “And a blocked nose,” Makoto admits, looking to the side. “I’ve had worse colds before, really.” Haru nods, shuffles across the floor to get his laptop, and then shuffles back to prop himself up next to Makoto.

“We’ll watch a film,” Haru says, starting up his laptop. Makoto, unconsciously, leans closer, his shoulder warm against Haru’s. They watch the second and first Little Mermaid, in that order, because the storyline of the second film is _infinitely_ better than the first but even Haru can admit that the songs of the first were better. Haru’s just about to start up the third film (and maybe Rin had meant the trilogy as a joke gift, but Haru’s not complaining) when he feels rather than hears Makoto sigh in his sleep.

He glances down at Makoto – he’s got his head resting on Haru’s shoulder, which Haru knows can’t be comfortable because Nagisa’s whined about it enough, whined about the bruises on his forehead after head butting Haru’s shoulder. Nevertheless, Makoto looks pretty comfortable, eyes closed softly and mouth slightly open. There are twin spots of colour on his cheeks, but when Haru brings his hand to his forehead he’s not too warm.

At the touch of his fingers, something subliminal must go through Makoto, because he – and there is no other word for it – _nuzzles_ closer, like a cat. And then, to Haru’s own bemusement, his hand starts carding through Makoto’s hair, like Pavlov has rung some unheard bell. He watches his hand move in the same way you watch the news – detached, but with the sense that something important and life altering may be happening.

 _His hair is soft_ , Haru observes.

Makoto opens his eyes.

 _Fuck_ , Haru observes further.

“That feels nice,” Makoto says.

Haru tried to think of a way to justify what he was doing. _He_ didn’t even know why he was playing with Makoto’s hair, but he didn’t think ‘My hand did this on its own’ was a good excuse for anything. He stilled his hand, and then pulled it away very slowly, watching his hand’s movements closely, because _evidently_ it could no longer be trusted to act with his best interests in mind.

“You looked hot. Warm. So I was moving your hair out of your face,” Haru says succinctly, vaguely acknowledging that saying ‘you looked hot’ to Makoto had caused his stomach to swoop strangely, but choosing to file away that information for a later date. Thankfully, he is talking to the boy that was convinced his friend was moving to Pangaea; Makoto accepts this excuse easily. “You should get some more sleep, I’ll go study in the kitchen for a bit.”

Makoto must be pretty out of it, because he nods once, lies down, and drifts off almost immediately. Haru looks at him for a moment and then consciously pulls himself away. Now was as good a time as any to go and stare at nothing but his textbook for a few hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thankfully I had this written and edited earlier this week, because I went out last night for the first time in months and I'm still so fragile.  
> Hit me up on susanpevensle on tumblr.


	3. Chapter 3

Makoto is noticeably better the next day, and by the weekend he’s fully recovered, which is a relief – Haru didn’t want to have to tell Nagisa and Rei they couldn’t come to visit, especially when they’d had the trip planned for so long.

What with Makoto getting sick, neither of them had had a chance to ask Nagisa what was bothering him, and it honestly would have completely slipped Haru’s mind if Makoto hadn’t received a text from Kou late on the night before Nagisa and Rei were supposed to arrive.

‘ _Nagisa’s Tweeting sad song lyrics – as your former manager, I give you permission to find out what’s wrong with him using whatever means necessary!!!_ ’ Kou and Nagisa are the only two that bother with Twitter out of Haru’s friends, but Haru knows enough to know that Tweeting sad song lyrics probably means Nagisa was venting, and venting on a platform he knew his friends didn’t frequent.

“We could text him to ask him what’s wrong?” Makoto suggests, putting his phone to one side and curling up in his sleeping bag again. Haru shakes his head.

“He could just ignore a text, he seems like he really doesn’t want us to know anything’s wrong.” Haru frowns up at the ceiling, too bright from the streetlamps outside. “We’ll have to be sneaky.”

***

There is a tentative knock on their door, a screeched ‘ _Nagisa-kun!_ ’ that sounds muffled by fabric, and then someone is drumming on their door, chanting ‘ _Mako-chan Haru-chan_ ’ until the words sound garbled, nonsensical, and almost like they could be one word.

Haru dryly wonders who could _possibly_ be knocking as Makoto opens the door and is promptly barrelled over by Nagisa. Nagisa and Rei are wrapped up in scarves and hats, their noses pink from the cold outside.

“Nagisa-kun, imagine if this _wasn’t_ their flat!” Rei says, sounding pained and hard done by, but the hastily hidden fond smile doesn’t really help his case.

“Of course it’s their flat,” Nagisa says – he’s hugging Makoto but he’s stepping them both sideways, too, over towards Haru, who watches their approach warily. Makoto seems oblivious to what Nagisa’s doing, so when Haru allows Nagisa to pull him into the hug Makoto hums in surprise. “You printed out the maps from the internet, Rei-chan.” He waves his hand behind Haru’s back – Rei sighs, but shuffles over to join the hug anyway.

“Sorry to be a pain, though,” Makoto says apologetically, and it’s only because he’s known him for so long that Haru can tell he is lying through his teeth. “But we forgot to get stuff for dinner tonight – Rei, would you mind coming out with me to buy food?”

“Why can’t I go?” Nagisa asks – he doesn't seem suspicious, although he’s glancing at Haru curiously.

“I need someone to help me prepare the stuff we _have_ got,” Haru lies easily. “And Makoto isn’t allowed near the kitchen.”

Nagisa nods, accepting this reason. “Neither’s Rei-chan,” he confides in a loud whisper.

“I happen to be an excellent cook!” Rei says indignantly.

“Salad dressing is not ‘cooking’, Rei-chan,” Nagisa says sweetly, herding Makoto and Rei out of the door eagerly – Haru’s starting to think this might not be such a good idea, a thought confirmed when Nagisa slams the door shut, turns around and _stares_ at Haru.

“I need to talk to you,” Haru says, because there’s no point beating around the bush.

“I expected this,” Nagisa says, sitting down on one of the still unpacked boxes. “A while ago, if I’m being honest, but not all of us are as in tune with our feelings-”

“What’re you talking about?” Haru says, sitting on another box (they really need more furniture). “What feelings?”

Nagisa frowns at him. “What’re _you_ talking about?”

“You’ve seemed upset for the past few days, I wanted to ask if you were alright,” Haru says confusedly, tapping his heels against the box. Nagisa laughs in surprise, which, while not the response Haru was expecting, is nonetheless a comforting response.

“You were worried about me?” He laughs again. “Thank you, Haru-chan, but I’m fine.”

“Even Kou’s noticed something’s wrong,” Haru says – Nagisa blinks, sighs, and looks away, bottom lip sticking out.

“It’s silly.” Haru raises an eyebrow, unimpressed with this answer. Even without looking Nagisa seems able to discern his feelings, because he sighs again, this time dejectedly. “Everyone’s really eager to get more people on the team, and it feels like… Like we’re replacing you and Mako-chan,” Nagisa says bluntly.

“Nagisa, you can’t compete at all with just you, Rei, and Kou,” Haru points out. There is a moment of silence where they both try to imagine Kou participating in the relay, but they give up after a while – the thought is too strange to process. “You need new members, but it’s not like you’re replacing us.”

“I said it was silly,” Nagisa counters. He smiles. “I’ll be fine, Haru-chan, I’m just feeling a little nostalgic.” Haru is struck by the fact that this boy in front of him was the same kid that followed them around when they were younger, now almost an adult, and he’s hit by that same nostalgia. He shakes his head.

“Kou and Makoto are worried about you,” Haru says. “And I’m pretty sure Rei will be worried, too.”

“It’s not like before,” Nagisa says hastily. “I’m not going to do anything like run away from home!” He laughs – it sounds a little forced, but Haru doesn’t say anything. “I wasn’t going to say anything, because it’s such a bad reason to be all mopey – what gave me away?”

“Apparently you were tweeting sad song lyrics?” Haru says.

Nagisa frowns. “Wha-? How did you – _Kou_.”

Haru nods. “But Makoto and I both noticed you seemed a little off during our Skype chat. Come to think of it, we noticed it when you and Rei were telling us about recruiting new members.”

Nagisa laughs. “I thought I hid that pretty well.”

“We’ve known you since you were little,” Haru reminds him.

“Yeah, well, the same goes for you two,” Nagisa says – Haru tilts his head, confused. “I can tell something is happening with you too, Haru-chan.” Haru feels he’s missed an important conversation segue, a feeling that only intensifies when Nagisa rolls his eyes. “Haru-chan, are you _sure_ there’s nothing you want to tell me? Nothing you want to _confess_?”

“I’m guessing you’re not talking about the time I grated crispy mackerel over your hot chocolate and told you it was English cocoa powder?” Haru says.

“No,” Nagisa replies, staring at him with unconcealed horror. “Although that is _disgusting_ , Haru-chan, and we’ll talk about that later.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and squints at Haru like he is a pudding Nagisa is trying to discern the flavour of. “You _still_ don’t know, do you?” He says exasperatedly. At Haru’s continued blank expression he _sighs_ , throws himself forward and buries his face in his hands. “ _Haru-chan_.” He looks up suddenly, grinning so widely that Haru does a double take – hadn’t he been sighing just a moment before? “Hey, promise me when you figure it out, you’ll come to me first, right?”

“Nagisa, I have no idea what we’re talking about any more,” Haru says. “And I haven’t had a clue for the last few minutes.” Nagisa looks at him intensely. “Fine, I promise. What am I promising to tell you?”

“I think you need to figure _that_ out on your own,” Nagisa says sweetly – the phrase sounds vaguely familiar.

“My mother said that to me the other day,” Haru says thoughtfully, trying to remember the context.

“Wise words,” Nagisa says, grinning so smugly that Haru kicks him with his toe.

***

Makoto and Rei come back _laden_ with food – Haru shoots a pointed look at their kitchen, which barely has any space as it is. Makoto just shrugs.

“I know what you’re thinking, Haruka-senpai,” Rei says easily, putting the bags down on the kitchen floor and massaging his fingers with a wince. “But I can assure you, Nagisa-kun will eat most of this food before we even have a chance to put it away, we didn’t have a chance to stop for breakfast.”

“You _are_ good to me, Rei-chan,” Nagisa says reverently, already rummaging through the shopping bags. To his credit, Rei’s ears only go a little bit pink at the tips, but both Haru and Makoto notice, simultaneously raising their eyebrows at each other. With Haru’s attention caught, Makoto shifts his eyes over to Nagisa, and then widens his eyes questioningly – Haru nods. “Also stop reading minds, Mako-chan, Haru-chan, you have guests,” Nagisa says, not even looking up from the bags. He emerges, holding a cake, and glances at Haru. “Do you even use words when you’re alone, or is it always just-” He widens his eyes and bats his eyelashes in what is apparently an impression of Haru.

“We’re not reading each other’s minds, Nagisa,” Makoto says, laughing. “We’ve just-”

“ _Known each other a really, really long time_ ,” Nagisa recites monotonously, rolling his eyes. “Yes, yes, you’ve said before. You know they make horror movies about that kind of psychic connection?” He says.

“Help me make some lunch,” Haru says to Nagisa immediately, with the intent of saving Makoto from having to hear any more horror movie synopses than he already has. Unfortunately, Rei insists on helping in any way he can, which means Makoto feels _he_ has to help, too. They all end up getting under each other’s feet before Haru, crowded and stressed, shoos them all out of the kitchen so he can prepare lunch in peace.

It’s as Haru’s setting down the plates on one of the larger cardboard boxes, their makeshift multi-purpose table, that Makoto’s phone rings. Makoto glances down, raises his eyebrows in surprise, and answers.

“Hello? Yes, I am feeling better, thank you!” He says pleasantly. “Yes, I’m still available this Wednesday. After our lecture? Yeah. Did she? That’s good, I think we could probably use the help! I’ll text you when I get there. Uh huh. Yeah. See you Wednesday!” He hangs up, puts his phone on silent, and slips it into his pocket.

“School friend, Mako-chan?” Nagisa asks innocently.

Makoto nods. “She’s in my study group, she was just asking if I was feeling better – we’re supposed to meet up on Wednesday.”

“Study partners?” Nagisa asks. “Is she cute?” He winks at Haru, like they’re sharing an inside joke. A joke so inside and secretive that even Haru himself isn’t included in it – he blinks, bewildered.

“I… Hadn’t really thought about it?” Makoto replies, surprised.

“Think about it _now_ , Mako-chan,” Nagisa insists. Rei looks increasingly confused by the turn of conversation, but Nagisa easily placates him with a smile and a significant look.

“Well, I guess she is,” Makoto says, thinking. “She has pretty eyes. And a nice smile, although she doesn’t really smile a lot. Her hair looks… Clean?” Haru thinks he’s just grasping at straws here, but Nagisa and Rei share a glance.

“Pretty eyes. And a nice, rarely seen smile?” Nagisa repeats slowly. “Let me guess, she swims, too?” Rei snorts with accidental laughter, although he quickly covers it up with a cough. It seems like a perfectly reasonable question to Haru, one he’d probably ask if Makoto ever talked to him about girls.

“She used to be in a local swimming club,” Makoto says, brightening. “But she said she never entered competitions, because it was more about the friends she made at the club.”

“Of course,” Nagisa says, nodding very seriously. “And just why, may I ask, has swimming come up in your conversations with this girl?” Haru sighs – he’s bored of talking about this girl. It’s not that he doesn’t care about Makoto’s new friends, it’s just that he’s never mentioned this girl to him, so she obviously can’t be that important. Nagisa, however, doesn’t seem to want to stop talking about her any time soon.

“I was talking about Haru, and she asked me if I used to swim with him,” Makoto says, smiling at Haru.

“You still do swim with me,” Haru points out, but he’s drowned out by Nagisa’s wail of distress.

“Rei-chan!” He whines, burying his head into Rei’s back and muttering under his breath. In a manoeuvre that should look awkward but instead looks well practiced, Rei reaches behind his own shoulder and pats Nagisa on the head comfortingly. Nagisa sits up, sighs, and then starts back in on his food. “Well, no one can say I didn’t _try_.” Makoto looks at Haru, confused – Haru shrugs back, equally confused.

***

Nagisa and Rei had gone for a nap in one of the rooms that they’d decided would become a bedroom once everything was finally unpacked, and Makoto was going through the notes his school friend had dropped off during his absence, which left Haru sitting with a book, trying to concentrate on the required reading for his next lecture.

Except he couldn’t, for a number of reasons. First and foremost is a thought that should have just been a throwaway thought, something considered and then discarded, except this thought is clinging on like the scent of gone off fish.

Why did Makoto not talk to him about people he found attractive?

Granted, Haru didn’t talk about people _he_ found attractive, but that was because he’d never met anyone and immediately thought ‘wow’, which is what he imagined most people thought about people they found attractive. After knowing people for long enough he could tell you their attractive qualities – for example, Makoto had soft hair, and his eyes crinkled when he smiled, and his swimming stroke was beautiful to watch, and his arms looked strong and secure, and he was very good with children and animals, and he valued his family and friends a lot –

Haru frowned. This was a rather long list of his best friend’s attractive qualities he was forming in his head.

The _point_ was he didn’t tell Makoto about people he found attractive, because there weren’t people he met and felt the need to talk about. He’d assumed that Makoto felt the same way, but Nagisa seemed to think otherwise – why else ask Makoto all those questions about that girl?

“Haru, gritting your teeth like that will give you a headache,” Makoto says, glancing up from his notes. His glasses are nestled in his hair, making it stick out at odd angles. It should probably look silly, but instead it makes his hair look thick and sleep rumpled and _cute_.

“Have you ever had a crush on anyone?” Haru blurts out, which, _what_ , he’d meant to say something about how grinding his teeth had never given him a headache before. Makoto blinks, as confused by the conversation topic change as he is.

“Haru-chan?”

“Forget about it,” Haru mumbles, going back to his book.

“Haru, have _you_ got a crush on someone?” Makoto asks carefully.

“No,” Haru says quickly. Why are they talking about him all of a sudden?

“Then why-”

“You’d tell me about that kind of stuff, right?” Haru says awkwardly, still looking down at his textbook. He’d never considered that Makoto wouldn’t want to talk to him about things – or, worse, was stopping himself from talking about things because he didn’t think Haru would be interested. “If you had crushes on people, I mean.”

“Of course I would, Haru!” Makoto says fervently. He smiles. “Haru, I promise, the next crush I get, you’ll be the first person I tell.” Haru nods, and then stands up.

“I’m going for a bath,” he announces. Makoto grins, fully aware that Haru had skipped his morning bath in order to help tidy up their flat for Nagisa and Rei’s arrival, and goes back to his books.

Haru runs his bath, making a big commotion with the taps and towels to make sure Makoto is fully aware that he is getting in the bath. Then, when the bath is ready, he slips out and over to the bedroom, opening the door silently.


	4. Chapter 4

Rei is a pretty heavy sleeper. This comes with the security of a nice, normal family who allow you to sleep undisturbed. Nagisa is a very _light_ sleeper, a skill trained through years of practical jokes from sisters far older and wiser. This is what Haru is counting on – sure enough, Nagisa wakes as soon as Haru takes his first step into the darkened room, bath towels draped hastily over the unused curtain rails to mimic night.

“Haru-chan?” Nagisa whispers, rubbing his face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Haru whispers back.

Nagisa sits up and pats the floor next to him, blinking sleepily. “Haru-chan, you just woke me up from a nap as quietly as you could, so I’m guessing you snuck in here without telling Mako-chan – _something_ is wrong.”

“Does Makoto talk to you about his crushes?” Haru asks, because sometimes it is better to just say these things.

“In a manner of speaking,” Nagisa says. At Haru’s intense look he shrugs helplessly. “He doesn’t give me names, Haru-chan, but if I’m honest, he _really_ doesn’t need to.”

“So Makoto does get crushes?” Haru says. He can’t say why this is important, except that it is. Ideally he would like to know just who these hypothetical crushes are, too, but he’ll take whatever information he can get.

“Yes,” Nagisa says. He is watching Haru very carefully. “Haru-chan, I know you’re probably upset that he doesn’t talk to you about his ‘crushes’,” he says, emphasising the word very pointedly. “But please remember that there’s going to be a reason why he hasn’t told you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Haru says. “He said he’d tell me about his next crush. He said he’d tell me _first_.” Loud, boisterous laughter is not the response Haru expected to this, but it’s what he gets – Nagisa laughs so hard that Rei startles awake, eyes wide, and Makoto comes in, textbook still in hand as Nagisa rocks forward, still laughing.

“Haru? I thought you were in the bath,” Makoto asks – Nagisa looks up and _grins_ , except that’s not the right word for it. It is the look of a predator faced with prey that it intends to play with first. It is the look of a pushy customer faced with a new cashier, the obnoxious class of children presented with a substitute teacher, the CEO with the unpaid intern. It is a look that, put simply, spells doom.

“Your _next_ crush,” Nagisa says conversationally, bringing his knees to his chest and resting his arms on top of them. “Gonna tell Haru-chan first, are you? That’s very sneaky. I’m impressed.” It takes a moment, but the blush on Makoto’s face spreads so quickly that Haru is worried he’s going to pass out. Nagisa stands up, suddenly looking much more awake. “Let’s go for a chat. Rei-chan, entertain Haru-chan for a moment.” Nagisa grabs Makoto’s wrist and pulls him out of the room, leaving Haru and Rei sitting in the dark, both literally and figuratively.

“What happened?” Rei asks, blinking very slowly.

“I asked Makoto if he’d tell me if he had a crush, and he told me that I’d be the first to know the next time he has a crush,” Haru explains, although now he’s said it something seems strange about Makoto’s promise, but Haru can’t work out what’s giving him that niggling doubt.

Rei blinks again, eyelashes fluttering with the movement. “And something about that statement doesn’t sit right with you.” Haru nods, glad that Rei understands him. “I’m afraid I can’t help you yet, I’m still half asleep, but I’ll give it some thought.” Rei frowns. “How does Nagisa-kun fit into this?”

“I asked him for advice,” Haru admits. “Or, I guess, I asked him if Makoto talked to him about crushes and stuff.”

“Does Makoto-senpai not talk to you, then?” Rei asks. Haru looks at him, because his tone of voice isn’t implying curiosity, it’s suggesting that Rei already knows the answer and is just asking because it is expected of him.

“What do you know?” Haru asks him. “Has Makoto talked to you too?” Rei flinches in surprise, and then stammers a few unintelligible syllables. “Rei, do you know who Makoto’s crush is?”

“He hasn’t told me, no,” Rei hedges – Haru isn’t buying it, but he has to be gentler with Rei than he is with Nagisa, so he just raises an eyebrow very slowly. “I figured it out. Although that implies more consideration than I actually utilised, in actual fact it was quite an easy conclusion to draw-”

“Tell me,” Haru says abruptly.

“Haru-chan, please stop intimidating Rei-chan,” Nagisa says, bouncing back into the room so gleefully that he’s practically skipping. Makoto follows behind him with a much more sedate gait – more ‘walk to the gallows’ than ‘skip through a meadow’.

“I wouldn’t have to if you both just answered my questions-” Haru begins, but Nagisa interrupts him quickly.

“There’s no time for that right now, Haru-chan, because I was promised a tour and movie night, and I will not be deprived,” he says, pulling down the towels and letting the afternoon light flood into the room. “Come on, Rei-chan, let’s go get ready.” He drags Rei off to the bathroom, making Haru painfully aware that he _still_ hasn’t managed to have his bath yet.

***

It isn’t until they’re sitting in one of Makoto’s favourite restaurants later that night that Rei speaks to him again. Makoto and Nagisa had gone to order more food from the bar, and Rei leans across the table to talk to Haru quietly.

“Haruka-senpai, can I ask you a question about what you discussed with me earlier?” He asks; Haru nods. “Why does Makoto-senpai potentially not telling you about crushes he has distress you so much?”

“I’m not _distressed_ ,” Haru hisses, bristling.

“You snuck into the room we were sleeping in to talk to Nagisa-kun about Makoto-senpai’s feelings. Why not just wait until we were awake?” Haru stops, considering. He didn’t _know_ why it had seemed so important that he’d woken Nagisa up from his nap. “Well, if it makes you feel better, I think I know why Makoto-senpai’s statement worries you as much as it does,” Rei continues.

“I’m not  _worried_ ,” Haru says, but the look Rei gives him is so _pitying_ that it sort of falls flat.

“What I think,” Rei says, looking around to check that no one is listening to them. “Is that, subconsciously, you’ve realised that Makoto may have promised to tell you first about future crushes, but he hasn’t promised to tell you about _present_ crushes.” Rei has obviously been hanging around Nagisa too much, because he gives Haru a significant look, like Haru is missing a vital part of a puzzle that will turn out to be right in front of him the entire time. “But, and I’m not going to talk about this further because it’s something you need to decide on your own,” he leans further forward. “Why does the idea of Makoto having a crush on someone worry you so much?” Haru is so stunned by this question that he almost misses Makoto sliding into the seat next to him, and if Makoto hadn’t leaned closer to talk to him then Haru wouldn’t have noticed him at all.

“I know you said you didn’t want anything else, but I ordered a plate of grilled mackerel for us to share, if you decide you do want something,” he says. Haru thanks him but doesn’t say anything else because he’s distracted by how _close_ they’re sitting. Do they always sit this close together, with their thighs a comforting weight against each other? Neither Nagisa nor Rei seem surprised by how close they are, so it must be a regular thing, but the way Haru is instantly aware of _every_ nerve in his left thigh is definitely not regular.

He sits quietly, processing Rei’s question as Nagisa leads the conversation with a story about one of their new team members. He hasn’t really considered the idea that Makoto might currently have a crush on anyone, and a small part of him has always just assumed that they’ll stay together indefinitely. He looks over at Makoto just as he starts laughing at something Nagisa says, his eyes crinkling with the force of the laugh.

Maybe, Haru thinks, it’s not that Makoto isn’t telling him things that is playing on his mind so much. Makoto is entitled to his secrets, after all, and Haru doesn’t want him to have to tell him things like that if he doesn’t want to. Maybe it’s just the _idea_ that Makoto has a crush. But why would _that_ bother him, unless-

“ _Oh_ ,” Haru says, aloud.

“Haru?” Makoto says, because of _course_ he’d have heard an almost inaudible noise of realisation. “Are you all right? You look…” Makoto looks at him worriedly. “I don’t know, I’ve never seen you make that face before.” Haru looks over at Nagisa and Rei – Nagisa is staring at Rei, who has an indescribably _smug_ look on his face.

“What did you say?” Nagisa demands, shaking Rei’s shoulder.

“I need to go to the toilet,” Haru announces, standing up out of his seat.

“I’ll show you where it is!” Nagisa says immediately, getting up so fast that his chair scoots back several inches.

“Nagisa, you don’t know where the toilet is,” Makoto points out confusedly, still looking up at Haru.

“I mean, Haru-chan can show me where the toilet is! In case I need it later,” Nagisa says quickly, adding in a little dance of bladder desperation for added measure. Haru pulls him away from the table before he can say anything incriminating, and the minute he pulls Nagisa into one of the toilet stalls and locks it behind them, Nagisa grins.

“I like Makoto,” Haru says, feeling the blush rising. “How long have you known?”

“Since forever, Haru-chan,” Nagisa says dismissively, as though the thought that everyone has known about this crush ‘since forever’ isn’t the most distressing thing Haru has _ever heard._ “You need to tell him.”

“Right,” Haru says. “And Makoto’s crush…”

“Please don’t ask me silly questions, Haru-chan,” Nagisa says exasperatedly, flicking Haru on the forehead. “We’ll get out of your way, and then you can confess. I mean,” he says, sighing sadly. “I’d love to finally see it go down, but I don’t think you want an audience for this.” He looks hopeful, as though Haru will tell him that no, he _really_ wants Nagisa and Rei to sit by and watch him try and tell Makoto his feelings, but Haru has no qualms about squashing this particular dream.

“Give me ten minutes,” Haru says.

“Ten minutes?” Nagisa says incredulously. “That’s _it_?” Haru chooses to ignore him, exiting the bathroom and also choosing to ignore the person at the urinal whose eyebrows rise when Nagisa swiftly follows him out of the cubicle.

Makoto has his phone out on the table when they get back, which wouldn’t normally irritate Haru, except he’s talking to someone on loudspeaker, and they only know one person that Makoto would feel needs to be on loudspeaker to the four of them.

“Ah, they’re back!” Makoto says, grinning at Haru and Nagisa. “Guys, Rin just called! I mean, he called to talk to Haru in particular, but when I told him we were all here he-” Haru picks up the phone, switches off loudspeaker and hisses

“ _What_?”

“Nagisa text me,” Rin says, and Haru can actually hear his smirk. “Apparently you just dragged him off to the bathroom because of a certain realisation you just had.”

“When has he had time to text you?” Haru says through gritted teeth, glaring at Nagisa. Nagisa seems unperturbed by the glare, if the wink is anything to go by.

Rin doesn’t even bother answering his question. “Have you told him yet?” He says eagerly – why does _everyone_ know? Haru is suddenly reminded of what his mother had said, when they’d been talking about leases: “Something you both had to decide on your own”. Even his own _mother_ had figured it out before him.

“It’s been less than five minutes,” Haru reminds him. “You actually interrupted everything, so thanks for that.”

Rin scoffs. “Me being on the phone has never stopped you from doing _anything_. In fact, you’re quite capable of hanging up on me right now and getting on with it-” Haru takes him at his word and hangs up. Rin immediately rings back, but Haru stows Makoto’s phone in his pocket and looks over at Rei.

“Rei needs the toilet,” he says, looking over at Nagisa pointedly. Nagisa stares up at the ceiling, breathes very deeply through his nose, and then beckons Rei out of his seat. Rei, bless him, rolls with it, but not without shooting a few encouraging looks at Haru over his shoulder.

“Haru-chan, are you all right?” Makoto asks warily – Haru still hasn’t sat down, so Makoto is looking up at him, which only emphasises how thick his eyelashes are.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Haru says, holding out his hand for Makoto to take. He does, instinctively, but he glances over at the bathroom door.

“We can’t just leave Nagisa and Rei alone,” he says, still letting Haru take him out of the restaurant.

“We won’t go far, I just need some fresh air,” Haru says.

The night air is cold and crisp, but they’re too close to the city centre for it to ever be truly dark, so Haru has to turn away from Makoto if he’s going to be able to say what he wants to, because the street lights just highlight the lines of his face, the concerned furrow of his brow, and Haru can’t really concentrate if he’s staring at Makoto’s face.

“This morning,” he begins, leaning against the wall of the restaurant. Makoto stands next to him, and Haru can feel him looking at him so he continues to stare into middle distance. “You asked me if I had a crush on anyone.” He crosses his arms and watches a few cars speed past. “I lied. Sort of.”

“Um, okay?” Makoto says, evidently lost.

“But,” Haru continues. “I think you lied, too, when you said you’d tell me about any future crushes you have.” He finally looks at Makoto – he’s never seen him look so alarmed, and normally that would be enough for him to smother this, not talk about it, _anything_ to take that look off Makoto’s face, but if there’s one thing he’s learned in the last year it’s that they need to talk about things, and having feelings for your best friend was definitely something you needed to get out into the open. “You don’t plan to have future crushes, do you? Just the crush you have now.”

It’s Makoto’s turn to avoid looking at Haru, but instead of staring at one fixed point he looks around frantically, like a man trapped in a corner by a bear. “Haru-chan, you can’t predict whether or not you’ll get crushes in the future, they just happen-”

“Makoto,” Haru says seriously, and Makoto whips his head around to look directly at Haru, eyes wide. “How long have you had the crush you’ve got now?”

“A while,” Makoto admits quietly. “But it’s not – they don’t feel the same way, so I don’t want to talk about it because it’s just-”

“Have you _asked_ them?” Haru says gently.

Makoto shakes his head. “I think I know them well enough to know if they have a crush on me.”

“What if-” Haru begins, because this is it, past this point they’re not going to be able to take anything back, and that should scare Haru but in all honesty he just feels excited and _ready_. “What if they only just realised it themselves recently? Like… Today. Within the last hour. Hypothetically.” Makoto is staring at him blankly, and Haru curses his inability to use words coherently. He grabs one of Makoto’s hands. “I’ve always… It’s always been you, Makoto, I just couldn’t see it.” He can see that he’s starting to get through to Makoto, but there’s still doubt written all over his face so Haru tries to explain everything he is feeling as succinctly as he possibly can. “I need you there, Makoto.”

“ _Haru_ …” Makoto whispers. Haru puts his other hand, the one not clutching Makoto’s, onto Makoto’s shoulder and leans up –

“ _There_ you both are! They told us you’d both left, we thought you’d skipped out on the bill without telling us-” Haru, still on his tiptoes, turns very slowly to glare at Nagisa. Rei is standing behind him, hand smothering a grin, and Nagisa looks like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin in excitement. “You weren’t kidding when you said you’d only need ten minutes-”

“Please leave,” Haru says flatly. Nagisa salutes them both and Rei drags him back inside the restaurant – they don’t even wait for the door to close behind them before they high-five. “Um.” Haru looks at Makoto – the interruption had left him unsure of his footing, because what if he’d misread _everything_? But Makoto is smiling at him, so wide and open and honest that Haru figures it’d be pretty difficult to misread his feelings - he puts his hands on either side of Makoto’s face and kisses him, his lips curving up into a smile as he feels Makoto put his hands on his waist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I nearly forgot to post this chapter! It's been a busy week.


	5. Chapter 5

Not a lot really changes between them, which only makes Haru want to kick himself for not realising how he felt about Makoto sooner. Makoto still takes his hand when he gets out of the bath, Haru still cooks their meals (although that was less because of romantic reasons and more to do with both Makoto and Haru finding it stressful whenever Makoto cooked), they still spend most of their time together – except now they hold hands and kiss, which is a development Haru welcomes with open arms.

A few weeks after they get together, they had both managed to secure a full day off. Normally on days when Makoto didn’t have lectures Haru would still have training, but Makoto’s lecturer had emailed to say that she was sick on Haru’s day off, which gave them a whole day to themselves - unfortunately, there was one flaw in their otherwise perfect day off together.

“Just call the landlord,” Makoto says, hovering worriedly. Haru ignores him, but not because he wants to dismiss the idea – he is examining their boiler, which is making so much noise that Makoto could be yelling down his ear and Haru would still struggle to hear him. They’d noticed a few days ago that their flat seemed colder, but they’d both just put it down to it being colder outside. That morning, though, they’d both been woken up by the boiler’s pained screeching.

“We should probably call the landlord,” Haru says, stepping away from the boiler. He doesn’t know anything about boilers, but he’d still clung to the hope that the problem would be obvious and immediately fixable.

Their landlord, a helpful lady who’d brought over a tin of cakes when they’d first moved in, assured them that while she’d get someone sent out as soon as she could it would probably be tomorrow at the earliest, and she talked them through turning off the boiler to prevent anything going horribly wrong before someone could get out to examine it.

The change in temperature in their flat was almost immediate, which proved that, while shrieking noisily, their boiler had still been doing its job. Thankfully they’d been out and bought more furniture, so they had plenty of blankets to wrap themselves up in on the sofa as they curled up against the cold.

“It could be worse,” Makoto says, pulling the blanket up around his head and propping his laptop up on his knees. “We could’ve had to turn off the boiler before you had a bath.” He’s still shivering, so Haru pulls him closer and closer until he has Makoto’s head on his lap.

“The temperature doesn’t bother me,” Haru says – Makoto frowns at him, his bottom lip pouting out.

“It should! You’ll catch a cold, sitting in a freezing bath.” He’s still pouting, so Haru leans forward and kisses him lightly, pulling back when he feels Makoto’s mouth twitch up into a smile. “No, stop it, I’m trying to give you a lecture,” Makoto says, although the grin on his face is completely at odds with his words.

“Okay, I promise not to sit in a cold bath while our boiler’s broken,” Haru concedes. Makoto squints at him, but it’s obvious to both of them that this is the only concession Haru will make, so he sighs in defeat.

“I just don’t want you getting sick, Haru-chan,” Makoto says. Haru hums, threading his hands through Makoto’s hair. Makoto shivers again. “Your hands are cold.”

“We have no heating, Makoto,” Haru reminds him.

“Do you want to just go to bed? It’ll be warmer in there,” Makoto says. It takes a moment for what he’d said to catch up with him, but Haru can pinpoint the exact second it does, because the temperature of his face flares up as the blush rises over his cheeks. “I meant – to sleep! Because it’s too cold to do anything else.” Haru’s lips twitch up – his own cheeks feel a bit warmer, but it’s nothing compared to the steady reddening of Makoto’s face. “Don’t laugh at me, Haru-chan!”

“I’m not laughing,” Haru says, resting the backs of his cold fingers on Makoto’s cheeks; he hisses at the cold. “Let’s go.”

Their bed isn’t an extravagant piece of furniture, because they both spend more time out of bed than in it, but they’d decided to just get a double bed rather than spending more money on two single beds. They’ve been sharing sleeping space for long before they’d become a couple, so it’s not really a big deal – even less so as the pair of them, huddled up in blankets, shuffle into the bedroom and curl up under the duvet. Haru would wager that it would be hard to find something _less_ romantic.

Makoto is naturally colder than Haru, so he thinks nothing of shedding a few of his blankets and dumping them on top of Makoto, arranging them so that only the top half of his head is visible - even with his mouth covered Haru can tell he is smiling sleepily, his eyes crinkling at the corners. It's still early in the morning, early enough that a nap is entirely warranted. Haru closes his eyes and burrows further under the blankets.

When he wakes again, he's disorientated but _very_ warm. He wriggles slightly, his eyes still closed, trying to work out what feels so unusual. Behind him, Makoto sighs in his sleep, and shifts closer - Haru opens his eyes. Makoto's arm is wound around his torso, his leg is propped up on top of Haru's, and his dick is very obviously pressing against Haru's ass. 

Haru considers this for a moment. Then he moves again, and this time Makoto whines indignantly.

"Makoto," Haru says, twisting around awkwardly. " _Makoto_."

"Haru?"

"You're hard," Haru says succinctly. He moves his leg until it's in between Makoto's, and then he shifts it slightly - it takes a second, but Makoto quickly realises what is happening.

"It's just a natural-" he says quickly, looking anywhere but at Haru.

"It's not like I _mind_ ," Haru replies, flicking Makoto on the nose. 

"Oh," Makoto says quietly. "You mean, you want to-"

"Not yet," Haru says quickly. "I'm not ready for that. Wait, you-"

"I'm not ready either," Makoto says, just as quickly. 

"So this is fine," Haru says, twitching his leg against the noticeable bulge in Makoto's boxers. "We don't have to do anything about it." The movement makes Makoto's eyes go wide, and Haru tries - and fails - not to grin.

"Someday, though," Makoto says with a sheepish smile, shuffling his hips away awkwardly.

***

"I can't stop thinking about having sex with Makoto."

There's silence on the other end of the phone, leaving Haru to stare at the bedroom wall, questioning his choices. Eventually, there is a long, suffering sigh, crackling the speakers on his phone so much that Haru has to move it away from his ear.

"When I said 'keep in touch', this isn't what I meant," Rin says flatly.

"This isn't a joke, I'm being serious," Haru replies, frowning.

"I'm really not laughing here," Rin says. "What made you want to do this?"

"Well, the other day," Haru begins, moving to sit cross-legged on the bed. Makoto had a morning lecture and was due home within an hour, but this was the earliest time he could call Rin without risking waking him up on a day off. "When our boiler went out - remember, I told you - we spent most of the day in bed because it was warmer, and we talked about having sex-"

" _Haru_ , I was asking why you wanted to talk to  _me_ about this," Rin says hastily. "I don't want to think about you and Makoto having sex."

"We haven't had sex, that's my point," Haru says. "Neither of us are ready, but I still can't stop thinking about it."

"Why aren't you talking to Makoto about this, then?" Rin says, his voice a bizarre mixture of hope, desperation, and resignation to his fate.

"Because it's embarrassing."

"Haru, you regularly strip in public," Rin says exasperatedly.

"That's different," Haru says, and it's true; he doesn't care what nameless strangers think of his body, but he does care what Makoto thinks about him.

"Okay, if you don't want to talk to Makoto, keep that shit bottled in, like the rest of us," Rin says. "It's not weird to think about having sex with your boyfriend, I guess."

They catch up on their day to day lives for a bit, but when they hang up Haru doesn't feel any more soothed. He's never really had sexual thoughts about anyone before now, so this sudden influx of thoughts is -

He flops backwards on their bed, sighing frustratedly. He's still in this position when Makoto wanders in - Makoto blinks, and sets his bag down by the bedroom door.

"Long day?" He says warily, shrugging off his big winter coat. Haru rolls over and presses his face against the bed, just to hide the steadily rising blush on his face. "Are you sick?" Makoto asks worriedly, coming closer. The bed dips as he sits down, and his gloved hand is a comforting weight against Haru's back as he strokes gently.

"I'm not ill," Haru says carefully. "Promise you won't laugh." Makoto's hand stills on his back, so Haru takes this as the go ahead to continue talking. "I keep having... Dreams. And stuff. About you."

"Oh?" Makoto says confusedly. Haru lies there, face down, waiting for Makoto to catch onto his meaning. " _Oh_." After a few seconds of silence, Haru tilts his head away from the bed; Makoto is bright red and turned away from Haru, but he's grinning widely, the rise of his cheek obvious in profile. "Thought I was the only one," he says, very nonchalantly, and if Haru hadn't been looking at him he wouldn't even know he was embarrassed - as it is, Haru can visibly see the blush on his face flare up. Haru rolls up into a sitting position and kisses Makoto's cheek, the skin warm under his lips.

"I still don't think I'm ready for everything," Haru says slowly. "But... Some things." Makoto turns to look at Haru and must see something in Haru's face because he huffs out a breathy laugh and then leans forward, kissing Haru thoroughly. 

They've made out a lot since getting together, and a few of those times had been on the bed, but the knowledge that they both wanted to go a little further today was making the experience more intense than it had ever been. Makoto's breath is warm as he dips Haru backwards until he is lying on the bed, Makoto looking down on him like he is something to be treasured, protected. Then, Makoto laughs again, holding up his hands.

"Gloves," he says, pulling the gloves off his hands.

"Your shirt, too," Haru says, glancing at the plaid shirt.

"Only if you take yours off, too," Makoto bargains, and Haru definitely does not have a problem with that - he sits up slightly and pulls his t-shirt over his head, and by the time he's thrown it into the corner of their room Makoto is slipping the shirt off his shoulders, staring at Haru hungrily. The look sits in the pit of his stomach, making him feel warm and golden.

"Trousers?" Haru asks - it's not a request, but a confirmation of how far they want to go today. Makoto considers it for a moment.

"Trousers off, boxers on?" Haru nods, shimmies his jeans off and throws them in the general direction of his t-shirt. Makoto hovers, unsure.

"Do you still want to do this?" Haru asks - Makoto nods quickly, but doesn't make any move to continue. "Take your jeans off and lie down," Haru decides, because if Makoto needs a little guidance then he's happy to give it. Makoto drops his jeans closer to the bed, still within grabbing distance as he lies down, stretching out in a way that has Haru idly thinking that maybe they need to get a bigger bed. Lying down also emphasises the bulge in Makoto's boxers, and when Makoto catches Haru looking at it he whines, embarrassed.

"At least  _do_ something, don't just stare at it!" He says. Slowly, Haru lowers himself down until his own crotch is pressing up against Makoto's - he has to stay still for a second in case this ended horrifyingly quickly, and it seems Makoto was in the same position, if his blown out pupils were anything to go by. Haru leans forward to kiss Makoto, trying to keep his hips as still as possible, but even that small movement made his dick twitch. 

He's so focused on kissing Makoto that it takes him a while to notice that Makoto is moving his hands - in fact, he doesn't realise until his hands are touching his ass. He pulls away from Makoto in surprise, because he'd never even considered how  _good_ it would feel to have Makoto's hands on his ass and now he just wants to focus on remembering this feeling. Makoto misconstrues his surprise as dislike, though, and begins to move his hands away; Haru startles both himself and Makoto with how fast his own hands move to keep Makoto's in place.

"You like that?" Makoto says - he's not teasing, or being coy, he seems genuinely curious.

"Don't move your hands," Haru says firmly, going back to kissing Makoto. Eventually, when it doesn't feel like his dick will explode at the slightest movement, Haru begins to rock his hips. The effect on Makoto is instantaneous, groaning into Haru's mouth as his hands get a little bolder in their exploration, until he's using his hands to pull Haru closer and rocking his hips up to grind against Haru. Haru comes first, but Makoto isn't far behind. They lay there for a moment, Haru sprawled on top of Makoto and breathing sharply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I'll update every Sunday!" I said.  
> "It'll be fun!" I said.  
> Unfortunately, my past self couldn't account for a 47 hour work week combined with my laptop fan being broken by an overly helpful dad trying to Fix Things. That being said, now I can update on Makoto's birthday! Happy birthday, have some mediocre smut.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could waste your time with excuses about why I've only just finished this now. Or I could let you read the chapter, and then waste your time at the end.

Things continue along this vein until after the winter holidays – they’re back in Tokyo after having spent a week in Iwatobi when Haru gets a phone call from his mother.

“I think this would be a perfect time to get a part time job,” she says, forgoing a greeting entirely in favour of saying the strangest thing she can think of, apparently.

“Pardon?” Haru says. Makoto looks up from his laptop, eyebrows raised, and Haru shrugs at him.

“You’ve never had a part time job, have you, Haruka-kun?” His mother continues – Haru can’t tell whether she is just reiterating this, or genuinely doesn’t know. Either way, the answer is a resounding ‘no’, which he gives her. “Well, you’re an adult now, and it might be good to have a little extra spending money!”

Haru can’t imagine why he would need extra spending money – he budgets the money his parents give him well enough to allow him rent, food, public transport fares, _and_ leave him enough money to buy a new swimsuit once in a while. Nevertheless, he can’t think of a reason _not_ to get a job, so he assures her he’ll look. In fact, he’s pretty sure the little café nearby is hiring – a quick phone call to them confirms this.

“You’re hired,” the woman on the line says hurriedly, as soon as he expresses an interest.

“Don’t I need an interview?” Haru asks.

“We’re desperate,” is the flat reply. “Can you come in now to learn how to set up the coffee machines? We can discuss your hours then, too.”

“Um, yes?” Haru says, because he hadn’t woken up this morning expecting to be drafted into the working world by lunchtime.

“Excellent. See you soon.” She hangs up, leaving Haru feeling bewildered.

“What did they say?” Makoto says, having watched the whole thing looking as confused as Haru feels.

“I’ve got a job,” Haru replies, staring at the phone as though it had personally offered him the position.

“That’s great!” Makoto says enthusiastically. “When do you start?”

“Now.”

“Now?” Makoto frowns. “You haven’t even told them your name, yet.”

“They said they were desperate.”

When Haru walks into the coffee shop, half an hour later, he quickly realises that _'desperate'_ did not even cover it.

There was one person working when Haru arrived, clutching his bag as though his white knuckled grip would disperse the _hoards_ of customers crowding around the till. Even through the crowd, the woman on the till spots him hovering by the door and waves him over.

“You’re the boy on the phone, right?” She says when he’s drawn closer. “You’re a regular in here, aren’t you, you and your…” She pauses. “Boyfriend?”

“Yes, we are,” Haru says. He roots through his bag and hands her his passport – Makoto had done a quick internet search for things to bring to your first day at work, and the only form of identification Haru had with him was his passport.

“Alright, Nanase-kun, I’m Eru-san, come stand behind here and watch me use the till for a bit, and then you can have a go yourself.”

It is strange in an indefinable way, going behind the cash register of a place you frequent as a customer. Haru felt like he was breaking some unspoken rule, watching Eru-san go about charging customers for their orders, putting the coffees together, pointing out regular customers and their quirks.

“Over the next week,” she says when the crowd somewhat subsides an hour after he comes in. “Come in whenever you can – I’m in every day, our manager is on a training course and our last employee quit, so it’s just me and Miki-san, she works the night shift – so you can get a good knowledge of how everything works. Then, next Thursday, you’ll be opening up on your own. Don’t worry!” She says frantically, waving her hands. “You’ll be more than ready by then.” A customer approaches the till, and Eru-san jerks her head. “Want to have a go?”

***

Thursday comes – at five in the morning, when Haru’s alarm goes off, the sun has not risen. By six o’clock, the sun has _still_ not risen, because the sun doesn’t have to start work at six to make sure the coffee machines are in working order. The sun does not have to clean them correctly, because ‘Miki-san’ on the night shift just gives them a lazy wipe down and it’s like the machines _know_ they haven’t been cleaned correctly, because they’ll splutter coffee _everywhere_ if you rely on Miki-san doing their job properly. The morning shift technically doesn’t start until half past six, but whoever does the rota has evidently never tried to clean to coffee machines.

This is where Haru finds himself, at quarter past six in the morning on the most hectic day of his life – his head buried in the innards of Coffee Machine B, because _once again_ a coffee bean has gotten itself stuck in the pipes, and if he doesn’t retrieve this coffee bean it will probably loosen itself later in the day, drop into someone’s cup of coffee, and then they’ll probably choke. Eru-san mutters mutinously about ‘natural selection’ whenever he brings up the customers choking, but Haru just wants to get through the day without too much stress, and ‘Customers choking on coffee beans’ comes right under the heading ‘Stress’.

So – he is cleaning the coffee machine when someone _coughs_. He knows it’s not him, and he’s pretty sure a burglar wouldn’t cough to announce their arrival, but he still jumps in surprise anyway, knocking the back of his head on the coffee machine.

“Oh, no, I was trying not to scare you, but I guess I just – did that. Are you bleeding?”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Haru hisses through clenched teeth, gingerly backing away from the coffee machine. He pats his head, because he’s pretty sure that if he _is_ bleeding he’s allowed to go home – he’s not. He looks up at the intruder and blinks. “Makoto?”

Makoto grimaces apologetically, rubbing the back of his neck. “Surprise? I was going to wait until you’d finished cleaning the machine, but you seemed pretty engrossed in it, and then I realised I was just standing around when I could be doing something, so…” Haru looks at Makoto properly - he’s wearing the work uniform. _Haru’s_ work uniform. Haru glances down to make sure he’s wearing his own uniform – he is, so that doesn’t explain what Makoto is wearing. “I’m only working till midday, but our supervisor said Thursday mornings were our busiest time, so she said she’d ‘throw me in at the deep end’.” Makoto grins at the swimming metaphor, but Haru is a little too stunned to appreciate it.

“You’re working… Here?” He clarifies. He’d seen Makoto getting ready at the same time as him that morning, but he’d just assumed Makoto needed to get to the library early.

“Yep,” Makoto says, smoothing his apron with his hands. “Your mother’s right, it is a good time to get a part time job, so I called up to see if they needed any more staff here – you’re right, the woman who answered the phone did seem desperate – so I thought… Why not?” Why not indeed? It made sense, both of them working at the same place, because then they could look out for each other, make sure they weren’t overworking themselves.

Haru smiles slightly and wipes his hands on a cloth. “I’ll show you how to use the till.” There’s no way Makoto is ready for the coffee machines yet.

Makoto turns out to be good on the tills, but Haru had never considered the possibility that he wouldn’t be. He’s just the right amount of talkative and on-the-ball that a cashier needed to be, and Haru has watched several customers leave the store looking more cheerful than when they’d come in.

Haru is just getting done with serving his customer when he hears Makoto laugh next to him, and he glances over. He’s chatting with an old lady – one of the shop’s regulars, and someone Eru-san had warned him of on his very first day. It’s the first time he’s ever seen her smile, and even she seems a bit stunned by what’s happening. He turns back to his own customer to give them their change, but it’s proving a little difficult because he’s transfixed by Makoto. Haru can’t really blame him, Makoto’s laugh is something that makes people stop and look for a while, but there’s a queue, so he really needs this guy to leave.

“Here’s your change,” Haru announces, a little too loudly – the boy looks at him and blushes.

“Oh, I, thank you.” He holds out his hand, Haru drops the change into it, and then he takes his coffee and runs.

Haru is used to this, people watching Makoto for a little longer than is necessary, but it’s times like this when he wishes he could take Makoto’s hand and wave it under peoples noses. When he’d confessed this feeling to Rei he had been told that would probably be unwise – when he’d told Nagisa he’d been told to make banners to stick behind the tills.

“Haru, this is exhausting!” Makoto says, an hour after they’ve opened. “I don’t know how you do it all day.” Haru is just about to point out that he doesn’t chat to every customer like they’re his long lost relative, when he sees him, the guy from earlier, hovering by the front door. He tries not to smirk too obviously when he joins the queue again and hopes, for this guy’s sake, that he gets Makoto serving him this time.

He does end up stuck with Haru, and his alarmed blush when Haru looks at him knowingly makes Haru grin, but only a little. He doesn’t look at him or Makoto once during the transaction, and when he’s gone Haru glances at the clock, mentally placing a bet on when he’ll be back – he settles on half an hour.

He’s back within ten minutes, and now Haru can feel himself getting irritated. If this guy wants to talk to Makoto so badly, why not just wait until he goes for a break? Why rely on the probability of him getting Makoto as his cashier, when karma had landed him with Haru not once, but twice?

Only this time, he _does_ get Makoto as his cashier. He’s sure he makes about five mistakes with his next customers, because his attention is solely on what’s happening next to him – Makoto is apparently very pleased to see this boy, although Haru can’t hear what they’re saying because the customers insist on talking over them. Eventually the boy leaves, but not before he slips Makoto a slip of paper.

Haru glares at his next customer, who visibly takes a few steps back before stretching their arms out to place their items by the till. As Haru starts ringing their items through the till, he hears someone spluttering, but it takes him a moment to register what is going on.

He looks up in alarm just as Makoto is running out from behind the tills, over to the customer choking on that _damn coffee bean_.

***

Eru-san gets in at five minutes to two, and one look at Haru’s face has her offering to let him leave a few minutes early. Although Makoto had technically finished at midday he’d stuck around, proclaiming that he wanted to meet Eru-san in person but Haru knew Makoto couldn’t bring himself to leave Haru alone with the crowds of customers.

“Is it like this every Thursday?” Makoto asks hesitantly as they’re pulling on their coats. Haru wants to tell him that he got off lightly for a first day, because on his own first day somebody had drunk their coffee immediately, burnt their tongue and demanded to see the manager – at least the choking customer hadn’t really choked, and had willingly admitted that it wasn’t anyone’s fault.

“People don’t usually choke,” Haru eventually says.

“You both did great,” Eru-san says, patting them both on the shoulder. The shop is eerily quiet, so she’s doing a quick tidy up, balancing trays in her arms. Before Makoto can offer to help, Haru treads on his foot. “I’ll see you both on Saturday.”

As they leave, Makoto suddenly takes Haru’s hand in his and, very nonchalantly, says “Someone gave me this today.” He pulls the slip of paper out of his apron pocket and passes it to Haru.

“I saw,” Haru says, frowning at the paper. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Why would I do anything with it?” Makoto asks. “It was for you.”

“Um,” Haru says coherently, opening the slip of paper – sure enough, his name is written neatly inside, along with a phone number.

“He’s in my study group,” Makoto says. “He asked me to give it to you, and – well, before I could say no he’d run off!” Makoto huffs. “So then I knew I’d _have_ to give it to you, because I didn’t want to hide it from you, but also I didn’t _want_ to give it to you because-” Haru glances around and leans up to kiss Makoto on the cheek.

“I thought it was for you,” Haru admits. “I knew you wouldn’t do anything about it, but I was jealous because I couldn’t just announce that you were dating me.”

“You should probably text him, though,” Makoto says, grinning sappily at Haru. “Let him know you’re not interested.”

“Do you want him to know I’m dating you?” Haru asks, pulling out his phone and carefully copying the phone number on the paper.

Makoto hummed in consideration. “Okay. I mean, if he was interested in dating you he can’t be an awful person to be out to, right?” Haru shrugged, tapping out a polite refusal and sending it. He gets a polite message back a few moments later, wishing him well, and he pockets his phone.

“He seemed pretty okay with it,” Haru says after a moment, because Makoto’s gone quiet – a thoughtful kind of quiet, like he’s debating with himself inside his head. Makoto nods vaguely, and Haru lets the matter drop. He knows that, whatever Makoto’s thinking about, he’ll let Haru know if it’s important.

As soon as they’re in their flat, door shut behind them, Makoto kisses him, pressed up against the door – Haru grins when Makoto pulls away.

“I’ve wanted to do that ever since he came in and told me you were the most beautiful person he’d ever seen,” Makoto confesses between kisses. “Like he was telling me something I didn’t already _know_.”

“You should’ve,” Haru teases as Makoto lifts up one of his legs, putting it around his hips so that Makoto can get closer. “Behind the tills.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Makoto whines, lifting up his other leg so that he’s actually got Haru up in the air. “It was all I could think about _all day_.”

“Well, you can do it now,” Haru suggests, digging his heels in, like he can bring Makoto closer through sheer determination.

It’s quick and messy and they don’t make it to the bedroom, Makoto pressing Haru up against the wall next to the front door, and Haru knows it will take several intense washes before he feels comfortable wearing these trousers in public again (the swimsuit underneath is probably unsalvageable), but it’s what they both need.

Makoto starts giggling, though, which is not a response Haru was expecting. Haru frowns at him, and the giggles turn into snorts.

“I didn’t think we were allowed to screw anything on the walls,” Makoto says.

Haru stares at him, unsure whether he wants to kiss this boy or kick him. So he does both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the previous chapter in November, with the intention of continuing further. Then life got in the way, and I thought 'well, I could finish it there, right? I could finish it there.' I managed to convince myself not to touch this story, but I left it 'unfinished'.  
> And then, last night, I thought that leaving it like that was unfair - casually changing the status to 'complete' when people had been expecting more. So, this is a compromise chapter - a decent sort of end, open enough for me to write more for if I'm so inclined, and also more content before I put the 'done' stamp on this story.  
> Also this whole story was just an excuse to write that joke at the end. I'm so sorry.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to try to stick to a regular posting schedule for once in my life - probably once a week, on a Sunday?


End file.
